System and method for telephone conference based communication, entertainment and advertising platform with accounting functionality

Abstract

This invention enables people from the at-home viewing or listening audience of any television or radio broadcast to talk with each other to discuss the program's content on the telephone at any time before, during or after a show. In addition to discussion forums based on broadcast and print media content, the system provides premium priced telephone access to people with specific expertise, e.g., sports stars, politicians and a host of other specialists. Income is earned on a per-minute or flat-rate basis and billed to the caller primarily via credit card or their phone bill. Revenue can be derived from the sale of advertisement, e.g., mentions of the sponsor over the telephone during the initial greeting and within conferences, as well as from the licensing of the service to media networks as a value added service.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION[0001]This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. §119(e) to U.S. provisional application Ser. No. 60 / 984,364, filed Oct. 31, 2007.FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0002]The present invention relates to interactive applications involving a television broadcast display and viewers of the broadcast, and more particularly, to a system that enables television viewers of a specific program to join in an audio conference.BACKGROUND ART[0003]People who watch television, listen to the radio or read newspapers and magazines often have a desire to hear more about the subjects they are learning about and to share their own ideas on the subjects with others. A prior method for meeting this desire is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,839,417 of Weisman. The Weisman patent discloses a method and apparatus that allows individuals to initiate, join, manage, and participant in topic-based conference call programs. Such calls may be continuously on-going or awaiting partici...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

In a telephone conference, this would not work because you cannot conference thousands of people and you would not be able to hear anyone person among the babble of those thousands of talkers.

Thus, since a large and unpredictable number of callers may want to participate in the conference, the conference system software is configured to set up a series of parallel conferences with a limited number of callers in each so that each caller will get a chance to speak.

Images